And, just in case you didn’t get the point, there is a giant model of a sailboat on the first floor landing of the hotel and, at one end of the first floor corridor, a telescope pointed towards the sea.

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer, the rooms were shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the residents left — and, as there is nothing to admire but the buildings themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk up to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which in the season is animated with bathing machines and company, the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better.

In the 16th century, Spain’s newest colony, the Philippines, was administered from Mexico. Luckily, Manila’s first Bishop was “a disciple of Bartolome de las Casas . . . bishop of Chiapas. De las Casas, writing about the injustice, torture and decimation of the American Indians in Mexico, fueled a reform movement that led to a royal decree in 1542 banning the enslavement of Indians and virtually ending the encomienda system by limiting ownership of slaves to a single generation.”

— La Casa de Dios: The Legacy of Filipino-Hispanic Churches in the Philippines, by René B. Javellana, SJ

Love Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. Reading the essays in it painstakingly slowly.

Gary Kamiya was one of the founders of Salon.com (still going strong!). An ex-fellow Fellow from Stanford, Jim Paul, used to write for them. As did Chitra Divakaruni. As did Laura Miller. As did Heather Havrilesky.

Self is on Essay # 5, The Harbor at the End of the World:

A 1508 map by Johannes Ruysch depicts South America as the New World, with Asia in the place where North America actually is.